Channeling of rain water away from a building is a well known practice in the building art. Gutters systems are commonly added to buildings, such as houses, for channeling purposes. Gutters are troughs that channel water from an eave of a building, i.e., the horizontal lower edge of a roof, to a downspout. The downspout is essentially a drainpipe that drains water from the gutter. The gutter is a critical component of a building, because the gutter militates against moisture damage by channeling water off the roof and away from the foundation.
Traditionally, the gutter has been attached by nailing the gutter directly to the building. Building contractors often use a spike and ferrule system in which a narrow, tubular ferrule is placed between a front and a rear face of the gutter. The ferrule disposes the front face at a uniform distance in relation to the rear face. A spike or long nail is then punched through the outside of the front face of the gutter, through the ferrule and the back face of the gutter, and into a fascia board of the building. Gutter hangers, such as spacer plates having pre-punched nail holes, and the like are also known in the art for attaching gutters to buildings.
The fascia board in a variety of building designs, particularly in older designs, may have a pitch associated therewith. A gutter attached to the pitched fascia board, without additional support, tends to free float on the fascia board. When rainwater and other materials are captured and pool in the gutter, the front face of the gutter may then tilt towards the ground. The weight of the pooled material in the gutter also creates a moment at the point of insertion of the nail, resulting in a force pulling the gutter away from the fascia board. Further, the pulling of the gutter away from the fascia allows water to run and collect behind the gutter. The water, in combination with periods of adverse weather, high winds, and the like, may undesirably affect the integrity of the fascia and pull the gutter further away from the fascia. Water running behind the fascia may also pool at the base of the building and undesirably affect foundation integrity.
It is known in the art to employ gutter straps, for example, secured to the gutter and nailed to the roof, to militate against a free floating of the gutter on the pitched fascia board. Gutter clips that fit between the gutter and the wall of a building to support the gutter are also known. For example, in U.S. Pub. App. No. 2006/0053696, a gutter clip having removable segments which permit the gutter clip to be modified for placement against buildings incorporating both straight and slanted fascia is described. Gutter clips of the art typically have first and second portions of different dimensions that clip to a gutter wall. However, the known gutter clips result in undesirable stresses and may result in cracking and a shorter useful lifespan of the gutter. Known gutter clips may also lack flexibility in placing a pitch on the gutter itself due to the aforementioned limitations in the clip dimensions.
There is a continuing need for a gutter clip that levels the gutter against a pitched fascia board and which is readily adapted for various fascia angles. Desirably, the gutter clip also facilitates the implementation of a gutter pitch and leverages the inherent strengths of the gutter design in militating against a tilting of the gutter and a pulling away of the gutter from the fascia board.